Midnights

The bliss she had awakened with vapourised. She turned around in her bed frantically to see any evidence of his being there just a couple of hours ago, only to have her hopes dashed when she saw everything untouched, just as she had left it before going to bed.

She threw the covers back to look between her legs, but the insides of her upper thighs were clean, the skin unmarred from bruises. There were no signs of having had violent sex the previous night. Well, her core was throbbing, but she didn't know if it was because a mysterious man had fucked her senselessly, or because she had masturbated furiously before passing out, imagining it was his fingers instead of hers that skated and pressed between her delicate folds.

She wanted to cry, but she had a shitty lecture to get to, a course she had contemplated dropping all semester. So, she got out of bed and trudged to the bathroom. Luckily, it was empty because she was the first in the house to wake, as the others only had to rise hours later for their afternoon courses. Another reason to finally drop the course.

She sighed as she switched on the light, deciding to see what she would have to deal with today. Her face was usually a bit puffy in the mornings, and she hated the way her hair always seemed to get tangled in her sleep. As if a bird had decided to make a nest in it.

She gasped at the sight of herself in the mirror. Quickly, though, her shock ebbed. Maybe she hadn't seen evidence of the enigmatic man who had spent the night in her room, and was about to chalk the whole encounter up to sleep deprivation, but what she saw in the mirror awakened the hope that had started to ebb.

He had promised her something when she was drifting off to sleep, she recalled. He had promised her something she could no longer remember now that the world was bathed in sunlight, and no longer in darkness. No matter how hard she racked her brain, she could not remember the words he had whispered into her hair.

And even though the bruised wound Cora noticed on her neck, partly hidden by her unbrushed hair, did not jog her memory, it did leave her with a new promise.

A lifetime of midnights.